Her name has acquired totemic meaning for politicians on the right who have cited her in speeches as a bogeyman, even though she has never and, she promises, will never run for office: "I'm just like, really, am I the scariest thing you can conjure?"

Some are totemic and tall and lurch like giant insects, but most crouch low and wide and suggest driftwood, bones, weapons, fossils and animals, especially birds—with wings outstretched—crippled or alighting.

The bonuses paid to senior executives at RBS and Lloyds, which the government bailed out during the credit crisis, have become a totemic issue as the U.K.'s main political parties jostle to show which of them has the fairest economic policies.